How I Learned to Love
by AnnaKendrick47
Summary: My name is Beca Mitchell, this is the story of how I lost the ability to love and how I regained it.


**This is something I wrote a while ago so please, tell me what you think. This is inspired by true life events and trigger warning here**

* * *

Hello.

Okay.

That was awkward.

So awkward.

My therapist insisted I wrote this and I thought it would be sweet or whatever, so here goes nothing.

My name is Beca Mitchell and this is the story of how I lost the ability to love and how I regained after I met one person.

oO0Oo

I've been told I have a good memory but there are many things I wish I could forget.

I'm an only child and that was quite boring growing up. You see, my dad traveled all week and only came back on weekends so that left me and my mom alone during the week and I liked it that way. And you all will soon find out why.

I was 5 years old and it was a weekend. We were eating dinner, which only consisted of sandwiches and milk. I hated the taste of bread, it felt awful in my mouth and it made me nauseous but I ate it anyway because my dad hated it when I left some food on my plate.

This time because I didn't like bread, I asked if I could have something else to eat.

"No, Beca, this all we'll have for dinner." My dad said firmly.

My dad had anger issues, each time he got angry you could see it in his red eyes and it terrified you.

"But daddy–"

"–Stop whining and eat up or you'll be sent to your room without dinner." He said to me, angry.

I suddenly called for my mom and ran to the nearest bathroom and she held my hair back as I puked and cried. God I hated puking.

My mom said nothing as she guided me back to the dinner table and my dad didn't look any less angry.

"Finish your sandwich." He said sternly.

I had just thrown up, that's how much I hated bread — later in my life I found out I had celiac disease — and my dad just made me continue. Of course I puked again and went to bed crying.

That's just the start of it.

oO0Oo

Car trips were usually fun, my mom and I would play car games and I would play with something or just talk to myself and make myself laugh. Yeah I was a weirdo.

This time, we were going to the beach, which was only a couple hours away so I was looking out the window and talking. I was around 6 years old. I sometimes shouted because of the game I was playing and later I'd laugh loudly.

"Beca, try to be quiet, mommy and daddy are trying to talk." My dad asked.

I was quiet for maybe a few minutes before I started up again. Hey, I was a kid and an only child at that, give me a break.

So my dad asked me again to be quiet but not in a nice tone, in a warning tone.

"Beca, if I have to stop the car to spank you, you're not gonna like it." He said.

I was quiet for a longer time and this time I only screamed because of a bug — I was terrified of bugs — so my dad pulled up the car and slowly took his seatbelt off.

I was afraid as I watched him go round the car and my eyes already welled up with tears before he opened my door and I saw he was holding his shoe in his hand — it wasn't a heavy shoe, it was a fancy slipper as I called it.

"No Daddy please! I'm sorry no!"

Since it was hot, I was wearing shorts so I started screaming bloody murder when my dad's shoe made contact with my tiny pale legs. He slapped me hard and fast and I kicked my legs and cried and screaming for him to stop.

He stopped and just stared at me angrily for a while as I cried loudly.

"If you keep crying, I'll hit you again." He said.

I was in that stage of crying where you're hiccuping and it's _impossible_ to be quiet so naturally he just hit me all over again. And again he expected me to be quiet, which took me a couple tries but I held my hiccups in and he went back on the road.

My mom was quiet the whole time. And nowadays I don't like talking while I'm in a car, I like silence. Freud explains am I right?

The worst part about all this is my dad always said he loved me and when I asked why he hurt me he'd say all kids got spanked by their parents — yet I hardly think that was spanking and he was obviously lying to me as I would find out later.

So as I grew up, I stopped believing my dad actually loved me because I could _see it_ in his eyes everytime he got angry and hit me.

Brace yourselves for there is another — many actually — incident I wanna tell you about.

This time I was around 8 or 9, I was taking a bath. I wasn't shy about changing in front of my parents and being naked in front of them so my door was opened. I finished with my bath, got out of the tub and dried myself up before going to my room to put on my pj's.

"Beca come here please!" It was my mom.

I went to the bathroom without changing, so I was still naked, to find I hadn't emptied the tub and three towels had fallen in. I heard my dad's wardrobe door and immediately knew what was coming to me. I looked at my mom in fear and she had nothing but a shrug to offer me.

My dad grabbed me by the arm and dragged me to the hall where he proceeded to hit me with his shoe all over the back of my thighs and butt. I screamed in humiliation and pain as he went on for a while before putting me back in my room.

"Now you sit here and think about what you did." He said and closed the door on me.

I cried and rubbed my butt and thighs before getting dressed. After that, I stopped changing in front of _anyone_ , not even my mom. The humiliation that day was awful.

And people ask how I never liked the word 'love'.

I hated telling my dad I loved him, I hated hugging him and I hated when he showed emotion to me. When he cried because he was proud of me, I hated that. I loved it when he went away for the week because he wouldn't be there, it'd just be me and my mom.

There are so many things I don't remember that I wish I could. I remember jumping and feeling extremely uncomfortable whenever someone touched me.

Oh! Around this time was the time I was started getting bullied at school so that was great — _please_ note my sarcasm.

So when I was around 9, my parents and I were on this shoe store at this open mall and I was playing because I hated shopping, so I was just running around.

At one point as we were leaving, I accidentally ran to the streets and my dad pulled me back, angrier than ever. He pulled me aside to a more deserted corner and pulled my pants down along with my panties and used his shoe to hit me again. I cried so hard, he always hit my back and legs too so I was screaming.

I was angry at this point of my life, I felt like I could kill someone. The feeling of pain and sadness were still there but now I was mostly angry at everything.

At school, kids called me stuff and bullied me because I was too short and my hair was all curly — it's straight now — and there was this one girl who would physically bully me. She would grab my face and pull at my skin, she'd grab my hair and pull it until I cried, she'd grab my neck and pull me up so I was basically choking. And since she was this monster girl everyone was afraid of her and there was nothing little 12-year-old Beca could do.

I stopped telling my dad I loved him or hugging him, I told him I hated doing those things. I hated contact, physical contact, I couldn't look people in the eye and I'd rather stay quiet in class than ask something and have people laugh at me for it. I only had one friend and his name was Jesse, he was just as shy and quiet as I was but for different reasons probably. I know I loved him as my friend but he never spoke up and stood up for me during the years I was bullied.

As I grew up, my dad stopped hitting me as much. I begged him to stop and he promised. Of course that didn't make me happy and I still didn't like him.

It feels awful you know? To think to yourself you don't trust your dad and you don't love him and if the opportunity came you wouldn't keep in touch. It feels weird and I feel guilty. Everyone should love their dads shouldn't they?

My dad never helped my mom with the house, he hated driving me around places. There was a couple years he didn't have a job and he'd just sit around the house and do nothing. My mom and I did the dishes, cleaned the house and he did nothing. He had a mind of a guy who lived in the 50's.

So one day, back when I was 12, we were on our beach house and I wanted to go play with my across the street neighbor and Jesse but my dad said no.

"I'm going across the street." I said surely as I walked inside the house. I heard angry footsteps behind me and I knew it was my dad.

"Beca, fuck!" I'm almost sure he called me a bad name there but then again it's too painful to recall exactly.

I felt a strong and sharp slap to my arm and I was dragged to my room as my dad closed the door. He proceeded to give me the beating of a lifetime, I screamed loudly and since it was a dead end street with few neighbors, I'm sure everyone could hear me.

My dad hit me everywhere and I screamed and cried. When he left, he closed the door and left me screaming and crying in pain with the ever present promise he'd be back if I didn't stop crying.

I grabbed my stuffed rabbit I loved and hugged it tight, crying. I hated my dad. My mom came in with a glass of passion fruit juice and she sat by my side as I drank the juice shaky and cried on her shoulder. She then took me to the bathroom to wipe my arms since they had marks and some were slightly bleeding.

My dad never left his room, except for maybe an hour later where he calmly asked me to go with him to his car. I was terrified of him but I wasn't gonna say anything I was afraid he'd hit me again. We got in his car, the street was dark and the car didn't light up inside so we were in the dark and I had a small panic attack.

My dad was silent for a while.

"Beca... I wanted to let you know I'm not a monster." He said softly. "Do you think what you did was right?"

I was still crying but I didn't answer.

"Look at the way you were behaving, you were rude to your mom and me." He said softly. "I'm not a monster, Beca."

Of course I didn't believe him. I actually believed I was pretty much worthless and shit so I felt like shit for half my life. Thanks dad!

That night I slept with my lamp on — as I always did since I was kid. Turned out I was afraid of the dark, go figure — and I didn't actually _sleep_. I couldn't close my eyes for too long, I was afraid my dad would come in and stab me. And he says he's not a monster. I still slept with the door open that time that's why I couldn't sleep.

So I stopped trusting and loving my dad growing up. I never actually let anyone in, I hated when they'd show pity or try to hug me. I lost the ability to love people and cry in public. I watched tons of movies like _Titanic, A Walk to Remember, The Notebook, Marley & Me_ and never cried. I thought people who cried in movies were so weak, I _couldn't_ cry during movies, I _physically_ couldn't. I was incapable of crying, I felt real life was a lot more tragic than those movies.

I changed schools in high school so the bullying stopped. I made friends, I realized how amazing it was to have someone you can count on, but I still didn't love them for real.

That is, until I met _her_.

Her name was Chloe Elise Beale and she had red curly hair framing her angelic face with bright blue eyes to match. She was gorgeous. When I met her, I thought she was the most beautiful human being to ever walk the Earth.

Of course, at this time I was 16 and I had never fallen in love. I thought I was just obsessed with my friend.

Chloe was amazing, she was dorky and naive which made me wanna protect her from the world, she was smart but she didn't give herself enough credit. The two of us would always go to the movies, study together, sleep over, it was so much fun.

I never liked changing in front of people so when my friends started changing in front of me, I'd become embarrassed and look away. I changed in the bathroom, I couldn't even change in my room. And when I met Chloe I realized people wouldn't judge me for who I was, so I started changing in front of them.

I was doing therapy now but anorexia still hit me when I turned 17. I felt big and ugly even though I was normal, but I thought my dad would like me more if I was just a little skinnier. So I started dieting.

Dieting for me consisted of counting calories like crazy, putting very little food in my plate to put everything in my mouth and spit it out once I got to the bathroom, doing situps and pushups before bed and looking in the mirror for any sign of fat.

I didn't go very far, I was surrounded by friends now and I was in therapy so I only lost like 20 pounds — once I lost 10 pounds over the weekend, but that was when I stopped eating completely — and I slowly gained those pounds back.

I had finally come to terms with my sexuality when I was in senior year in high school and I first confessed it to my one of my friends Amy through notes during class and she said she didn't mind if I was attracted to chairs, she still liked me. I was pretty happy about that.

In those notes I also told her I didn't like my dad and stuff and idiot that I am kept those notes.

So my mom found them.

She came to me and the thing she was most worried about was the not liking my dad part. I rolled my eyes and said she was crazy because I didn't know how hurt she'd be if she knew the truth. I still didn't know why she hadn't divorced that guy.

My dad was a little better I have to admit. He was more caring and he paid more attention to me. I still didn't trust him or love him but he was trying. In my eyes there's no excuse or way he can repair what he did. He kept telling me he loved me and asking I was still afraid of him. I told him I wasn't and that was bullshit, of course I was afraid of him, he still got angry and still spoke things that terrified me.

One day, I was lying on my bed watching TV when my dad came in. And that's the most confusing day ever, to this day I don't know how to feel about it.

My dad came in and made himself comfortable on top of me. Like... he got on top of me and stayed there. I stood still like a rock — literally 'cause I was so tense — and I could only hear him breathing since his head was buried on my neck. Then he got up and left without even looking at me.

I was confused after he left and I felt dirty. Sure he never did anything but I felt disgusting. Like I should never ever stop showering. I was angry after that night; angry, sad, confused. Was that considered sexual abuse if he never touched me sexually? Or at least I think he didn't. Maybe I'm too used to hearing 'it's nothing' that I always tell myself that so I'm not sure.

Needless to say, I was that kid who never touched herself, never so much as acknowledged the fact that she has boobs and gets periods. My therapist said I had the mannerisms and behavior as a kid who was sexually abused but I don't remember much from my childhood. When she said that, I began to think my dad molested me when I was young and I don't remember but I'll never know. Probably not.

My parents got divorced shortly after that and I went to live with my mom. What my dad did to me growing up was never made "public" — and by public I mean our family: aunts, uncles, etc — so I still had to see my dad every other week but I stopped when I turned 18. Living with my mom was good enough for me.

At 18 was the year Chloe kissed me for the first time. We had been drinking, we were on this beach with my other best friend since we were babies, Stacie. Stacie was always there for me, my parents were great friends with her parents so it was natural that we were best friends.

Stacie was with us that night — she got us booze — and she set me and Chloe up. Her house was a beach front property so we were walking along the waves when Stacie excused herself not subtly.

I had never kissed anyone before so I was nervous but the alcohol managed to calm my nerves. Chloe made the contact first and I just followed her lead. I have to confess I didn't one _love_ the kiss, but I liked kissing her. Of course after that, we went out on a date and made out again and in _that_ time I felt I had more practice and I could enjoy the kiss. It was amazing, I could kiss Chloe forever.

I'm forever thankful for Stacie for breaking that ice because Chloe and I started dating, were strong through college and I proposed to her after we graduated.

My dad was invited, I couldn't _not_ invite my dad, but it was his brother, my uncle, who walked me down the aisle. My dad knows how much he hurt me and I think it hurts him too but I learned that unfortunately, I didn't care what happened to my dad because he hurt me way too much.

I had Chloe now.

When we started talking about having kids, I cried and I told her everything my dad did and she was pissed but I said I was afraid I'd turn into him.

Chloe grabbed my face and looked me in the eye.

"You will _never_ be like your dad. You're not him, Beca." She said. "You're gonna be an amazing mom."

And I believed her. It's still amazing how much I trust and love Chloe, I never thought this would be possible for me. Chloe changed the way I looked at life, she gave me a reason to live.

We're expecting a baby now — I'm the one carrying it if you can believe it — and it's gonna be a girl. I couldn't be more excited and nervous. I'm not afraid of being like my dad now. Because I _can_ love now, I _love_ Chloe and I already _love_ our baby girl.

And I guess this is my story. The story of how my heart warmed up to the possibility of love with the help of the most amazing person I know. My wife Chloe Mitchell.


End file.
